Some millennials add Botox to basic regimen
PHILADELPHIA — At 28, Katy Young tries to stay ahead in the game of life.
She does CrossFit five days a week — a wellrounded workout now gives a foundation for good muscle tone later.
She just purchased a townhouse in Pittman, New Jersey — a responsible way to build future financial equity.
And, recently, Young got her second round of annual Botox injections — a head start on fighting later aging (and ensuring that her current selfies are picture-perfect).
“You know that Instagram filter that everyone uses?” asked Young, an athletic trainer at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia with the words Fearfully Wonderfully Me tattooed in flamboyant cursive on her forearm. Cherry Hill, New Jersey, plastic surgeon Steven Davis had just finished injecting Botox in Young’s forehead and around her eyes to smooth out barely there frown lines.
“That’s what you look like,” she said. “You have an Instagramfiltered perfect face.”
Young is one of a growing number of millennials who, according to health-care professionals, are keeping standing appointments for nonsurgical beauty procedures such as Botox and hyaluronic acid fillers Restylane and Juvederm to attack faint laugh lines or plump up lips.
“These 20- and early-30-somethings are looking at these procedures as a form of self-care,” said Debra Johnson, president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “It’s part of their skin-care and general maintenance routines.”
In this high-tech era of so much imagesharing, wanting to be perfect all day, every day, in every way is seemingly the goal.
“I work in a salon where everyone is so pretty,” said Ana Sheridan, 28, a stylist at Salon Christopher Angelastro in Washington Township, New Jersey, who has been getting Botox every six months for two years.
“I have a big forehead, and I’m very expressive, and I just wanted to fix the wrinkles. I also have uneven eyes. One is slightly lower. Botox tied everything together.”
Johnson estimates that the number of patients in the United States who regularly undergo noninvasive surgeries has doubled since 2012.
But the younger folks, she added, still make up less than 5 percent of the total number of patients.
For that segment of the in-office-procedure population, the face is the No. 1 focus. But younger people might also be the most body-conscious.
So there is a lot of experimentation with procedures that melt (SculpSure) or freeze (Cool Sculpt) away fat from the midsection, thighs, and, of course, the rear-end.
Major advances in the beauty industry have made such procedures more acceptable to the younger generation, said Margo Weishar, founder of Derm Aesthetics, formally Springhouse Dermatology.
Weishar, like many of the other professionals interviewed, said she has had girls as young as 18 request Botox and filler information, but she gives them advice on how to better care for their skin (use sunscreen and stay moisturized) rather than start them so soon on fillers and Botox.
“People want the work, and they will even talk freely about having it,” Weishar said. “They just don’t want to look overdone.”
Davis refers to the busy, under-30 Botoxandfiller business at Davis Cosmetic Plastic Surgery as boutique Botox applications because it requires only a fraction of the product typically used.
For example, someone in her 50s might need roughly 25 to 50 units of Botox ($ 400 to $ 700 worth) to sufficiently knock out the forehead wrinkles. But a younger patient seeking the same results might need only 15 to 25 units ($200 to $400).
“That’s because we aren’t going after established creases or deep wrinkles yet,” Davis said.
“We are just trying to control the muscle activity so the creases and wrinkles don’t get as extensive as they could.”